Francis Ford Coppola's Overlooked Films

‘One from the Heart: Reprise’ (1982/2024)

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In the aftermath of the success of ‘The Godfather,’ ‘The Godfather Part II,’ and ‘Apocalypse Now,’ a lot shifted for Coppola. He suddenly had money for the first time in his career and while he did make some good long term business decisions — he bought his first vineyard in 1975 — many of the choices he made during this time were well-intentioned, but foolhardy. He started The Directors Company with Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin, focused on allowing him and his peers to produce work of their choosing that fit within a certain budget, but the group were only able to make three films before folding: ‘Paper Moon,’ ‘The Conversation,’ and ‘Daisy Miller.’ Another huge investment was buying an entire studio. Zoetrope Studios was supposed to be Hollywood’s home to the artists, but cost overruns on ‘One from the Heart’ forced Coppola to sell nearly as soon as he bought it.

Why did Coppola risk it all on a Vegas-set musical romance filled with archetypal characters and composed using technological advancements, as well as old-school techniques? At the time, Coppola’s own sense of romance was hanging in the balance. Following the tumultuous experience of making ‘Apocalypse Now,’ Francis and his wife Eleanor were not on the best of terms. He’d dragged his entire family into the madness of war and with ‘One from the Heart,’ was trying to worm his way back into theirs. Indeed, the romance at the center of the film — in particular Freddie Francis’ male lead — does have a seediness to it in spite of the studio-set production’s neon glow. While the film represents a strong technical growth for Coppola, it also stands as a testament to some of his unhealthier habits in relation to under-serving narrative. Markedly, the film was only the start of Coppola’s financial troubles and he’d spend the next decade trying to get out from under it.
‘Rumble Fish’ (1983)

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Coppola dealt with the backlash against ‘One from the Heart’ by seeking the relative safety of adaptation. After receiving a letter and petition to adapt S.E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’ for the screen from a librarian in Fresno, California, Coppola accepted the proposition and later dedicated the film to her and her students. A lot has been said of the fun the cast had making the film, but Coppola himself had a lot riding on this and didn’t have much time for enjoyment. To balance the struggle of serving the studio to get back in Hollywood’s good graces, Coppola spent his off-hours working with Hinton on another adaptation of her work he felt more personally passionate about, an avant-garde take on her 1975 YA novel ‘Rumble Fish.’

Centering on two ne’er-do-well brothers in a small town — the elder (Mickey Rourke) feeding the rebellion and disillusion of the younger (Matt Dillon) — Coppola drew from his own complicated, yet unwavering love for his older brother August to craft this visionary tale of what it truly means to follow in someone’s footsteps. Throwing away the saturated, sumptuous imagery of ‘The Outsiders’ and replacing it with expressionistic, noir-like compositions, ‘Rumble Fish’ packs a much harder and more nuanced punch than its predecessor. Almost every frame features a clock. Clouds are seen as moving at a clip, disrupting our balance of time and therefore our reality of the situation. It’s a fascinating visual and narrative reflection of youth’s fleeting nature and only one an artist like Coppola could conceive.
‘The Cotton Club: Encore’ (1984/2017)

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If you thought the ‘Megalopolis’ press was bonkers, imagine adding in drug trafficking charges against one producer and the murder of another. This is what Coppola was combating when trying to put together yet another musical — a genre he had very recently flopped with. ‘Godfather’ producer Robert Evans was in turmoil during the ‘80s after being tagged with cocaine trafficking charges. He eventually pleaded out and to reclaim his spot amongst the Hollywood greats, he put his chips on another fledgling comrade, Francis Ford Coppola, and a story that unearthed other elements of New York’s criminal and artistic history similar to what they’d done with ‘The Godfather.’

‘The Cotton Club’ is a piece of time-travel that whisks us back to 1930s Harlem and drops us into the revelry, abundance, crime, and tragedy of the time period with a pace that volleys between tap-like and bluesy. Both the original and the encore have a loose, vignette-like structure, but the real elements to appreciate are how Coppola captures performance, dance, and music. He seems to have learned from ‘One from the Heart’ and takes a more traditional approach to staging that’s no less inventive and lets us focus on the talents of the film’s stars. Coppola and Evans’ experience on ‘The Cotton Club’ was no less tumultuous and the press outshined the result, squandering any success it might have at the time. At one point, an investor on the film was murdered and it was later revealed Evans’ girlfriend had hired the hit men, so how was Coppola supposed to compete with that?
‘Tucker: The Man and His Dream’ (1988)

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The idea for ‘Tucker’ is said to have first began while Coppola was attending UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, but having been born in the car town of Detroit and having his middle name be granted in honor of Henry Ford, one imagines this story of an oft-manic businessman trying to buck the car industry to create a vehicle with more beauty and ingenuity than your standard Ford might have been within Coppola since birth. Initially conceived as a musical, Coppola spent a week with composer Leonard Bernstein and others to sketch out songs and even spoke to Gene Kelly about choreographing, but after the failures of ‘One from the Heart’ and ‘The Cotton Club,’ producers were not convinced he could handle the genre well.

In 1986, Coppola teamed with friend and colleague George Lucas for a Disney theme park short starring Michael Jackson called ‘Captain EO.’ During production, Lucas encouraged Coppola to re-think ‘Tucker’ as an homage and subversion of Capra films that investigate the American dream. He even offered to produce the film, later putting up the $24 million budget himself. Right when everything seemed to be coming together, tragedy struck. Coppola’s eldest son Gian-Carlo, was killed in a boating accident. Choosing to shoot in Marin County, California as opposed to Michigan, where the story takes place, allowed Coppola to remain close to his family during production and for him to finally see his passion project through, later dedicating it to his son. The end product features one of Jeff Bridges’ greatest performances, and stunning turns from Joan Allen and Martin Landau, but its best feature is the message buried at its center: Ingenuity can be stifled in pursuit of the status quo only if we let it, and often we do.
‘The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone’ (1990/2020)

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If ‘The Godfather’ is about how power is born, and ‘The Godfather Part II’ is about how power is maintained, ‘The Godfather Part III’ is naturally about how power is immortalized. The thing about power though — depending on who wields it — it’s not always well remembered. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) may have preserved the empire, but he squandered his soul and most everyone around him knows it. No donation or amount of penance will ever redeem him and yet he can’t help but try anyway.

Consider this in relation to Coppola’s own decade refusal to make ‘The Godfather Part III’ and how his acquiescence only came as a result of his own financial turmoil, perhaps you’ll understand why he chose to approach capping the series with a wholly somber ending versus the tragic triumphs Michael experienced at the end of the first two. It should be remembered that Coppola didn’t want to make ‘The Godfather’ in the first place. He knew the stereotypes that it might evoke, even despite his personalization of the material. To have to claim it as his main legacy must be its own kind of burden, even with all the success of the series. Reflecting that feeling back to the audience was a risk, especially considering how fervent the fan base of films are, yet it was Coppola’s only way into understanding Michael’s rise and eventual fall. Like Michael, he knew what it was like to sacrifice everything and knew that even after doing such, you can still lose it all.
‘The Rainmaker’ (1997)

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Coppola’s ‘90s were nowhere near as productive as his ‘80s or as influential as his ‘70s, but his films from this decade have an assuredness that make them incredibly watchable if not downright stunning. With ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ he presents a literary classic with gothic flair, echoing elements from the original film while introducing a level of violence, sexuality, and gore not considerable at the time of that film’s conception. That film received the acclaim and box office it deserved, but Coppola was unable to leverage this success and would not make another film for four years, when he directed Disney’s ‘Jack’ and received the worst reviews of his entire career. He followed this up with a relatively safe bet for the time, an adaptation of a successful John Grisham novel.

With other adaptations like ‘The Firm’ and ‘The Client’ making big bucks at the box office, studio prognosticators figured ‘The Rainmaker’ would follow suit and when it didn’t — only making $5 million over its budget — it was easy to put the blame on Coppola himself. In fact, after ‘The Rainmaker,’ it would be a decade before Coppola made another film. This is sad considering how taut and engaging a film ‘The Rainmaker’ actually is. Following a young law school grad making his transition into actual legal work, the film features a colorful cast of characters and a central health insurance case that pulls on the heartstrings without contrivance, instead speaking to the very real manipulation by corporate entities on the everyday sick person. Perhaps if the film had come out the month after Matt Damon’s breakthrough in ‘Good Will Hunting’ versus the month before, it would’ve been a hit.
‘Tetro’ (2009)

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After a decade in the desert, Coppola reemerged with his 2007 fantasy drama ‘Youth Without Youth,’ another piece that holds style above substance, much to its detriment. However, Coppola quickly followed this up with a much more introspective, narratively rich film that once again reflects the filmmaker’s relationship with his older brother August. Also the father of Nicholas Cage, August was a writer who studied philosophy and went into academics, forging a strong support for the arts throughout his career and rising to the position of Dean of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. But perhaps his greatest influence was on his little brother. During an ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ episode in 2001, Francis said of August, “My love for my brother formed the major aspects of who I am.”

And yet — as with all families — love is complicated. In ‘Tetro,’ Coppola takes slightly altered pieces of his own family history and weaves them together through a conflict that evokes Greek mythology. It’s debatable who the central figure of ‘Tetro’ actually is, the titular elder brother played by Vincent Gallo or his younger half-sibling Bennie, played with boyish impetuousness by Alden Ehrenreich. It’s through Bennie we’re actually introduced to Tetro — once named Angelo, again drawing allusions to Coppola’s own brother — but the story is actually about Tetro and how his genius has been marred by long-held secrets and personal shames. Consider the translation for the Italian word “tetro” is gloomy and you’ll come to realize just how open and honest this film is about the joys and perils of brotherhood. The film was released a few months before August’s death in 2009 and one wonders if Francis might have made this just for him. Even if he did, the rest of us are lucky we get to witness this touching, beautifully shot ode to tortured genius and familial ties.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 7 Most Overlooked Films

Harrison Richlin

‘One from the Heart: Reprise’ (1982/2024)

‘Rumble Fish’ (1983)

‘The Cotton Club: Encore’ (1984/2017)

‘Tucker: The Man and His Dream’ (1988)

‘The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone’ (1990/2020)

‘The Rainmaker’ (1997)

‘Tetro’ (2009)

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